TULTEPEC, MEXICO — Relatives of workers at a fireworks market flattened by a deadly chain-reaction explosion searched hospitals for loved ones Wednesday as attention focused on apparent lax security that allowed vendors to display their dangerous wares in the passageways between stalls. Late Wednesday, the state of Mexico, where the San Pablito Market is located, updated its list of dead to 33, a figure also announced by state Interior Secretary Jose Manzur in a local radio interview. About 46 people remained hospitalized. Ten of the injured were minors, including one girl with burns over 90 percent of her body. Juana Antolina Hernandez, who has run a stand for 22 years in San Pablito next to one operated by her parents, escaped the market in a mad dash when the explosions began Tuesday afternoon. The following day she was one of the disconsolate residents waiting outside a local morgue. “I can’t find my father, and my mother is very badly burned,” said Hernandez, 49. “I am waiting here for them to tell me if my father is here, but up to this point, nothing.” A massive explosion guts Mexico's biggest fireworks market in Tultepec, Dec. 20, 2016. A massive explosion guts Mexico's biggest fireworks market in Tultepec, Dec. 20, 2016. Full of fireworks, shoppers San Pablito was especially well stocked for the holidays and bustling with hundreds of shoppers when the blast reduced the market to a stark expanse of ash, rubble and the scorched metal, casting a pall over the Christmas season. Dramatic video of the explosion showed a towering plume of smoke that was lit up by a staccato of bangs and flashes of light, the third such incident to ravage the market on the northern outskirts of Mexico’s capital since 2005. Refugio Leon, who spent years working at the market and whose family ran seven stalls there, said vendors commonly stacked displays of bottle rockets and firecrackers outside their establishments in the passageways — even though the rules supposedly forbade putting merchandise in what was supposed to be a safety buffer to prevent chain-reaction explosions. “Everybody did it,” Leon said, speculating that it may have played a role in the rapid spread of the explosions. Video and photos of the stalls from previous years showed concrete-block enclosures with open dirt passageways between them; later photos showed the passageways filling up with fireworks and awnings. A man walks through the scorched ground of the open-air San Pablito fireworks market, in Tultepec, outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico, Dec. 20, 2016. An explosion ripped through Mexico’s best-known fireworks market where most of the fireworks stalls were completely leveled. A man walks through the scorched ground of the open-air San Pablito fireworks market, in Tultepec, outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico, Dec. 20, 2016. An explosion ripped through Mexico’s best-known fireworks market where most of the fireworks stalls were completely leveled. Cause still unknown Officials in Mexico State, which borders Mexico City, said it was too early to identify a cause of the massive series of blasts. On December 12 the city of Tultepec, where the market is located, issued a statement calling San Pablito “the safest market in Latin America.” It said 100 tons of fireworks were expected to be sold during the high season, which runs from August to New Year’s. The city quoted Juan Ignacio Rodarte Cordero, the director of the state’s Fireworks Institute, as saying “the stalls are perfectly designed and with sufficient space between them to avoid any chain of fires.” City officials said the stalls were equipped with trained personnel, sand, shovels and fire extinguishers. But during a recent visit to the market, little of that safety equipment could be seen. And when Tuesday’s explosion began, vendors and customers didn’t have time to look for it — or even, in many cases, to run. ‘Only thing you can do is run’ In a fireworks market in Jaltenco, about 30 minutes away from the San Pablito market, business was slow Wednesday. Rosa Maria Gonzalez, 47, indicated that her stand was 12 meters from the next nearest ones and said she believed that San Pablito’s passageways were narrower and more cluttered. Gonzalez said she had a permit and met all of the other required safety measures with a bucket of sand and bucket of water at the ready. But she conceded it likely would not make a difference. “When there is really an accident there isn’t time for anything,” Gonzalez said. “I’m not going to look for the sand, if it begins to go off the only thing you can do is run and wait until it all goes out.” The president of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, Alejandra Barrales, noted that fireworks accidents take place regularly including four this year alone. “This demonstrates the lack of care and attention not just here but in the whole state,” Barrales said in a statement. Bodies difficult to identify Mexico State chief prosecutor Alejandro Gomez said some of the dead were so badly burned that neither their age nor their gender could be immediately determined, and that DNA tests would be needed. He said the toll could rise because 12 people were listed as missing and some body parts were found at the scene. A list of the nine bodies identified so far included a 3-month-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. Gomez said a total of seven male minors were among the dead. Tultepec Mayor Armando Portuguez Fuentes said late Tuesday that the manufacture and sale of fireworks is a key part of the local economy. He added that it is regulated by law and under the “constant supervision” of the Defense Department, which oversees firearms and explosives. “This is part of the activity of our town. It is what gives us identity,” Portuguez said. “We know it is high-risk, we regret this greatly, but unfortunately many people’s livelihoods depend on this activity.” Manzur, the interior secretary, said 30,000 people make a living from fireworks in Tultepec and the trade had been going on there for two centuries. People look at fireworks for sale a the Jaltenco Market in Zumpango, Mexico, Dec. 21, 2016. On Tuesday, a larger fireworks market in Tultepec exploded, killing and injuring dozens. People look at fireworks for sale a the Jaltenco Market in Zumpango, Mexico, Dec. 21, 2016. On Tuesday, a larger fireworks market in Tultepec exploded, killing and injuring dozens. “Everything is gone,” said Hernandez, the woman at the morgue, for whom the market represents a family business passed down from one generation to the next. “I know we lost everything, but I am going to start over.” Two similar fires engulfed the San Pablito Market in 2005 and 2006, touching off chain-reaction explosions that leveled hundreds of stalls in each incident. Deadly fireworks explosions have also occurred elsewhere in Mexico: In 2002, a blast at a market in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz killed 29; in 1999, 63 people died when an explosion of illegally stored fireworks destroyed part of the city of Celaya; and in 1988, a fireworks blast in Mexico City’s La Merced market killed at least 68; and in 2013 a rocket struck a truck loaded with fireworks for a religious procession in Tlaxcala state, killing 17 people.

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — Two New Zealand navy vessels on Wednesday reached a small South Island town cut off for more than two days by a devastating earthquake, bringing supplies of food and water and plans to evacuate hundreds of stranded tourists and residents. Prime Minister John Key went to Kaikoura by helicopter to inspect damage to roads that cut off the seaside tourist town after the 7.8 magnitude tremor that struck just after midnight Sunday. New Zealand Earthquake Damage and Evacuations please wait New Zealand Earthquake Damage and Evacuations • • • 0:00:57 0:00:00 /0:00:57 ▶  Direct link  The government was expecting to receive satellite imagery later Wednesday to assess massive landslides around the country. The quake buffeted much of central New Zealand and left two people dead. "Look at this road here," Key said on his journey to Kaikoura, around 150 kilometers [90 miles] north of Christchurch. "I just don't see how you can ever repair that bit of road. The whole mountain has moved over." Slides trap train Pictures shared on social media showed large sections of rocky coast covered in seaweed and abalone, apparently lifted out of the sea by the force of the quake. Huge landslides covered access roads and rail routes. One train was caught between two slides. The HMNZS Wellington was surveying the harbor area at Kaikoura to ensure that it was safe for vessels, Civil Defense director Sarah Stuart-Black told reporters. Officials said more than 400 people had been evacuated by helicopters from Kaikoura, including a dozen who were injured. "Between 700 and 1,000 people still require evacuation," Stuart-Black said. Kaikoura is a popular base for whale watching. New Zealand lies in the seismically active "Ring of Fire," a 40,000-kilometer arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that encircles much of the Pacific Ocean. Christchurch is still recovering from a 6.3 magnitude quake in 2011 that killed 185 people. Landslides block State Highway One near Kaikoura on the upper east coast of New Zealand's South Island following an earthquake, Nov. 14, 2016. Landslides block State Highway One near Kaikoura on the upper east coast of New Zealand's South Island following an earthquake, Nov. 14, 2016. More ships Another five ships were steaming to Kaikoura, including the USS Samson. The Samson, the first U.S. warship to visit the South Pacific nation in three decades, and Australian, Canadian and Japanese ships were on hand in Auckland for celebrations of the Royal New Zealand Navy's 75th anniversary. Until an agreement reached last month, U.S. military ships had been prevented from visiting New Zealand because of the country's nuclear-free stance adopted in the 1980s. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Key on Wednesday to express his sympathies over the earthquake. "They discussed the New Zealand economy, trade and agreed that the relationship between New Zealand and the United States was in great shape," Key's office said in a statement. Hundreds of stranded tourists have been housed in the communal halls of Kaikoura's indigenous Maori Ngai Tahu tribe and fed with crayfish, a famed food of the South Island town. Marine life One commercial fisherman said the quake has had a devastating effect on Kaikoura's marine life and it could take years for shellfish stocks to bounce back. Jason Baker, a paua, or sea snail, diver, was part of a team sent to assess the damage. He said the seabed had risen up to six meters in some areas, exposing thousands of paua, crayfish, butterfish and other sealife. "I sort of came away from it feeling sick, to be honest," Baker told RNZ. "It's just changed the environment forever. ... It's going to affect people's livelihoods." In the capital, Wellington, officials are to decide within days whether a multistory building damaged in the quake and strong aftershocks would have to be brought down.

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting with Taiwan's opposition leader Tuesday underscored China's key message to the island's independence-leaning administration: The price of not recognizing Taiwan as part of the Chinese nation, as Beijing demands, is access to China's highest levels of power. Xi's meeting with Nationalist Party Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing comes months after China cut off communication and exchanges with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's administration. Diplomatically, China has also sought to isolate the island even more by having its representatives barred from international gatherings. While Xi referred to neither of those issues in his opening remarks before the media, he reiterated the importance of the "one-China principle" and the "'92 consensus," referring to an agreement reached at a breakthrough meeting that year reinforcing the principle. Beijing says the agreement forms the basis for all future contacts and exchanges — and must be explicitly endorsed by Tsai. "To ensure that the country can't be separated and ensure the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation is the common will of all Chinese people," Xi said, according to footage shown by Hong Kong's Phoenix TV. The meeting marked Xi's highest-profile talks with a Taiwanese political figure since he met then-President Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore late last year for a one-day summit. Xi said that China "resolutely opposes" Taiwan's formal independence and that the sides should "continue to push forward the cooperation in all fields, and continue to improve the sentiment for the benefits of the peoples, and strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." Although the Communists and Nationalists were bitter foes for decades, they have found common cause in recent years in their opposition to Taiwan's independence and desire for closer economic ties. Underscoring those ties, hundreds of representatives from the two sides will gather on Wednesday for what is being called a "forum on peaceful development," to discuss issues from politics to economics, culture, social issues and youth. In her remarks to Xi, Hung noted that while more formal channels for communication are currently blocked, the Nationalists "cannot shirk its responsibility to help civil society though the communication channels between the Communist Party and the Nationalists" to solve problems. She said the Nationalists wanted to help maintain communication between the sides to facilitate economic, cultural, social and other exchanges and explore the possibility of a peace settlement. Hung said efforts should be made to eliminate the "dangerous turmoil" caused by the independence-leaning government to "preserve the hard-won harmony" between the two sides. "Although the Nationalists are not the governing party, we will never, for a second, forget the mission of cross-Straits relations," she said. Hung's election as Nationalist boss was widely seen as recompense for her being dumped as the party's candidate to run against Tsai in the January election. She is seen as the standard bearer for the party's more conservative pro-unification wing made up largely of those who followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan after the Communist military victory on the Chinese mainland in 1949 and their descendants. Under another candidate, the Nationalists went on to lose the presidency in January by a landslide, along with their parliamentary majority. On Monday, Hung and her delegation paid their respects at the mausoleum of original Nationalist leader and Chinese President Sun Yat-sen in the former capital of Nanjing. Sun, who is revered by both the Nationalists and the Communists, inspired the former enemies to "work together to fight for the national rejuvenation and improve people's livelihood," Hung said. "We will create a prosperous future. (As long as) both sides of the Taiwan Strait cooperate and develop peacefully, our common wish will come true," she said in remarks carried by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. Despite the keen rivalry between the Nationalists and Tsai's DPP, Tsai's spokesman Alex Huang said Monday that the government sees "all normal people-to-people exchanges" with China in a positive light. "The two sides should enhance mutual understanding and promote the peaceful development of bilateral relations through meaningful dialogue and exchanges without political preconditions," Huang was quoted as saying by Taiwan's official Central News Agency. However, he added that all political parties should "stand by the people" and support the government's policy on cross-strait ties. He also added that only the government was authorized to forge agreements on behalf of Taiwan.